Montezuma has Christmas chocolate covered

Christmas is the season for giving, family reunions and gorging yourself on chocolate. UK chocolate company Montezuma has that last one covered nicely, having recently come out with some ethical treats for the festive season.

Montezuma chocolate is made in the UK, so the carbon footprint of getting it to your house and into your mouth is smaller. It's also completely organic, and all the ingredients are fairly traded. Rather than working under official Fairtrade principles, though -- they aren't fans -- Montezuma has come up with its own ethical guidelines.

"Fairtrade overly simplifies the issue, doesn't offer the correct level of information to the consumer and crucially, it muddies the water for 'ethical' chocolate companies not wishing to work under the Fairtrade banner," says Montezuma.

"Where Fairtrade is required in the world it certainly offers a healthy alternative to the growers, but the Fairtrade organisation should stand firm by a wider principle and not supply dominant and destructive retail chains in the UK or elsewhere."

Their advent calendar comes in milk, white or dark chocolate, is gluten- and soya-free and costs £12.95. You can pace yourself at one chocolate hit each day or go for broke and give yourself some instant gratification.

They also have hollow tree- and snowmen-shaped chocolate figures to get you in the Christmas spirit. But our favourite has to be the chocolate tree baubles -- wrapped in foil with a ribbon attached so you can hang them on the Christmas tree (£7.95). What can we say, we like trees!

Make sure to stock up, though, because these will never last until the twelfth day of Christmas. Montezuma currently has stores in Windsor, Newbury, Brighton, Chichester, London, Winchester and Lichfield, but you can also shop online.

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